The present invention relates to a building element for the production of dismountable internal and external walls, fences, parapets, sheathings, and the like.
As everywhere in corresponding production circles, the reduction of costs can nowadays only be attained by a large scale efficient design modernization. One of the factors of such a modernization is the possibility of assembling larger units from a number of elements, whereby the elements are simple and can be produced on an assembly line and the small number of different constituent members does not demand large stocks with many different items to be maintained.
Especially in building constructions, attempts are made to reduce costs as much as possible, as this is the only way to offset, at least partially, highly increased prices. A number of suggestions have already been made in this direction, but none have been absolutely satisfactory, as the elements they proposed either did not meet the demands described above or were so unhandy that only a small number of them could be transported on one vehicle, thus increasing the costs of transportation from the place of production to the building site.
For this reason many producers resorted to the production of smaller prefabricated parts which then are assembled at the building site to form larger building elements. Thus, German Pat. No. 1 913 292 describes a remountable and dismountable separating or partition wall consisting of single members of preferably rectangular form which can be easily transported. These elements are provided with grooves at their shorter sides, into which grooves tongues are placed to bridge the separation gap and to stabilize walls made of such elements, as the tongues connect adjacent elements. In order to improve stability, this proposed construction provides also that the separation gaps between adjacent elements be dislocated laterally. Apart from the fact that the obviously large building elements are difficult to transport, the elements used for building such a wall are not dimensioned to permit different patterns of combination, and therefore it is necessary to maintain a stock containing a larger number of elements with different measurements for varied building designs.
German Pat. No. 1 659 012 suggests a separation wall of prefabricated parts including supporting profiles and wall panels attached thereon. For the anchoring of these wall panels the supporting profiles are provided with one or two vertical profile rails with profile rods of a specially shaped cross-section on one or both of its sides, which profiles fit into corresponding grooves of the panels when assembled. However, in this case also the large wall panels cause problems of transportation, and the production of the profile rails with the profile rods on the supports and of the grooves in the panels not only demands a great deal of work during assembly at the site, but also causes the further disadvantage that the single member parts which consist of wood are prone to warping, especially if stored for a certain time, which results in the rods and the grooves not properly fitting together. This proposed arrangement also does not provide the single member parts with dimensions which have a fixed relation to each other, thus offering only a limited number of varied possibilities for assemblage of such a wall.